Although this isn’t free culture, it’s Canadian culture. I can’t watch videos on the NFB site because it uses a proprietary player. Fortunately for me (and all free software users), NFB makes its video available on YouTube as well. Video on YouTube is accessible with free software, and although it doesn’t license to share it is possible to embed the video here.

This is one of my all time favourite Canadian winter films. It was commissioned by Canada Post, and dates back to the time Canada Post was invested in Canada and had a sense of humour. Although it is a cartoon, it does contain mature subject matter Viewer discretion is advised.

Your civil rights are in danger.

Have you ever wanted to protest anything? The first protest I went to at Queen’s Park was to protest Ontario eliminating provincial OSAP grants for post secondary education. Later, I was a young mom when I took my toddler to the next protest when Mike Harris was cutting social services and dismantling public education.

People are allowed to protest in a democracy. I know people who protested G7 and G20 and I know people who have never protested in their lives. All sorts of people who never thought they would ever protest anything came out to protest Bill C-51. The Harper Government (and the Justin Trudeau Government that followed) chose to ignore the protests. They can do that.

What they can’t do is stop people from protesting. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the right of every Canadian to dissent.

Maybe you’ve never protested, and maybe you never will. But today you have the right to protest. No government approval required.

This is especially important in our unrepresentative representative democracy because its the only way to even get winner-take-all government to pat attention. But the City of Toronto is considering removing that right…preventing you or anyone from protesting on city or provincial property without permission.

If the City of Toronto goes ahead with this, if they stop peaceful protests from taking place on city or provincial property, it won’t just affect Torontonians. This could prevent Citizens from anywhere in Ontario from expressing their dissent at Queens Park without breaking the law.

This is a motion, not a law, but even so, with this in place, serious breaches of civil rights will undoubtedly follow. [As they happened at Toronto’s infamous G20.]

If it goes unchallenged, other municipalities will likely follow suit. Which is why I’m sharing this call to action.

The organizers of this protest are concerned because Toronto City Council is considering a motion to shut down civil protests on Toronto or Provincial Property.

No information, no process, no visibility – just privileged access to power.

Tell Mayor Tory and all councillors this ill-conceived and ill-considered motion will not pass in our city.

URGENT – Meeting this Tuesday (Nov 28 at 9:30 am)

Toronto City Council is considering an item that came to Council on Sep-19 from Councillor James Pasternak (Ward 10 – York Centre) who is seeking a motion to shut down or prohibit access to public demonstrationson city and provincial property for so-called “hate-infested” rallies and he particularly mentions “Al Quds Day” as an example.
According to Pasternak, the Al Quds Day rally is “hate-infested” and “anti-Semitic”. Moreover, Councilor Pasternak places the Al Quds Day rally in the same category as white supremacist and neo-Nazi rallies. He also writes that “for the past several years there has been an Al Quds Day rally held in Toronto outside Queen’s Park featuring speakers making anti-Semitic and anti-Christian remarks, spreading hatred, inciting violence and supporting of terrorist organizations such as Hamas. Al Quds Day was originally created to call for the destruction of the state of Israel.” (see link below for full text.)

Not only are the claims unsubstantiated, they are untrue, misleading and grossly defamatory. If Councilor Pasternak has a problem with Al Quds Day, he should pursue it directly and not try to implicate other groups, movements and protests in sweeping action which will harm our freedom of expression and protest.
It is obvious that the larger goal of this motion is to engulf and shutdown ALL protests or actions supporting Palestine solidarity. This is typical “thin edge of of the wedge” attack which can be eventually applied to ever-broader definitions and eventually include any protest against mainstream / corporate / institutional policies and programs. This motion is a blatant assault to responsible civil society – its role and conduct

And moreover it is being done behind the backs of citizens with no notice, no attempt to contact or inform the accused or affected groups or organizations. Another abuse of fair process and reliance on privileged access to power

Now is the time to cut down this duplicitous and vile initiative before it goes any further in the council decision process. The matter is being considered at Executive Committee on Tuesday Nov-28 (9:30 am) and will be brought to City Council the following Tuesday (Dec-05 at 9:30am)

We need to let the Committee and also Council that this is NOT OK and we categoricallyreject any attempt to silence the public’s natural right to protest against power, injustice and inequality

You can read the documents related to this item from the city website. The last item is from the City Deputy Manager and the Toronto Police Service, are very encouraging to public protest. We need to ensure that city politicians do not meddle with what is a relatively open policy.
Link to the item on Executive Committee agenda for Nov28

This battle is only beginning and you can expect more calls to action between now and City Council Meeting on December 5th, 2017.
[*NOTE: IF THERE IS ANY CHANCE YOU WILL WANT TO SPEAK TO COUNCIL, YOU MAY NEED TO REGISTER IN ADVANCE —LLR]

There is no online site or facebook page as yet. We are in midst of organizing… this is only an opening action. Please write NOW; you are welcome to some of the words or thoughts above in this email or use your own.

“We are heartbroken to share the news that Bassel Khartabil was executed by the Syrian government some time after his disappearance in October 2015 in Damascus, Syria.

“Bassel Khartabil, also known as Bassel Safadi, was born in Damascus, Syria on May 22, 1981. He grew up to pursue an education and career in computer engineering. He was the co-founder of the collaborative research company Aiki Lab, and the CTO of the publisher Al-Aous. He served as the first project lead and public affiliate for Creative Commons Syria, and contributed to numerous Internet projects, such as Mozilla Firefox and Wikipedia.

“On March 15, 2012, Bassel Khartabil was arrested in the Mazzeh district of Damascus. For more than three years he was detained by the Syrian government at Adra Prison in Damascus. On October 3, 2015, Bassel was removed from his prison cell, and was sentenced to death by a Military Tribunal. We know now for a fact that Bassel Khartabil was executed by the Syrian government some time in October 2015, and we are demanding to know the exact date he was tried and then executed. No information at all was provided to his family until July 2017. The details of his sentencing and execution, and the whereabouts of his remains, are unknown at this time.

“Bassel Khartabil is survived by his wife, Noura Ghazi Safadi, as well as his mother and father.

“At the request of Bassel’s family, Creative Commons is announcing today that it has established the Bassel Khartabil Memorial Fund to support projects in the spirit of Bassel’s work. Creative Commons is accepting donations, and has seeded the fund with $10,000. Bassel was our friend and colleague, and CC invites the public to celebrate Bassel’s legacy and support the continuation of his powerful work and open values in a global community.

Contributions to the fund will go towards projects, programs, and grants to support individuals advancing collaboration, community building, and leadership development in the open communities of the Arab world. The fund will also support the digital preservation, sharing, and remix of creative works and historical artifacts. All of these projects are deeply intertwined with CC’s core mission and values, and those of other communities to which Bassel contributed.

Here in the “free world,” extraordinary efforts to silence and shut down free software and free culture by large corporations are ongoing. If software freedom was the unquestioned norm I have to wonder: would Bassel even have been arrested?

Today the EFF released these letters Bassel wrote from jail before he disappeared.

EFF is honored to share the letters we received in 2015 from activist Bassel Khartabil, whose death in Syria was confirmed this week. pic.twitter.com/kaeY7Fj4YF

“Around the world, activists and advocates seek the sharing of culture, and open knowledge.

Creative Commons, and the global commons of art, history, and knowledge, are stronger because of Bassel’s contributions, and our community is better because of his work and his friendship. His death is a terrible reminder of what many individuals and families risk in order to make a better society.”

In spite of armies of editors and proof readers, main stream publishing has a long history of published typos. And as a writer I can tell you, it’s really easy to miss something, especially in something as substantial as an article or a book. Even if you know how to spell.

Even when a mistakes were caught, it wasn’t reasonable to assume publishers would recall books and reissue them with corrections. Errors wouldn’t be fixed until the second edition. If there was a second edition.

One of the most earth shattering things to happen to the world of proof readers was our move into the digital age with the invention of the spell checker. Suddenly proof readers became obsolete.

But all spell checkers are not equal. When the typo is a real word, no spell checker is going to flag it. The thing we often forget about technology is that it is no more perfect than any other tool; human supervision is still required.

Wikipedia is the poster child for self publishing. Not only does it rely on the good will of the public to add articles and factual information, if errors are made, Wikipedia is self-correcting: the public has the power to correct errors and ommissions, whether of fact or spelling.

All those mainstream publishers who no longer employ enough staff to adequately proof read their content are publishing online in digital formats. Instead of hiring proofreaders, they often have a “report typo” option on their webspage so readers can catch their mistakes for them. Just as CBC does.

This way, when a reader gets hit between the eyes by an annoying typo, we can report it, so others won’t have to suffer as we have.

So I clicked on the link— it should be easy, right? But it seems CBC isn’t as interested in being told about typos as it is interested in getting personal information about anyone who wants to correct a typo.

This isn’t a news issue, or even a matter of opinion. If I point out the author probably didn’t mean the word “pit,” it doesn’t matter who I am or where I live. I could be living in Iceland and it would still be a typo. Either I’m right or I’m wrong.

Something that ought to take a minute and cost me nothing but a bit of time I was willing to spend, ended up costing me privacy.

There is no need for it, but this has become a prevalent practice online. Our personal information has become a valuable commodity that companies want for themselves, and very often to sell.

If you’ve ever wondered why you get spam, this is why. (I know someone who gave up an email account because he got so much spam.)

We need to stop giving our personal details to companies who have no legitimate need of them.

If you’re buying something that needs to be delivered, sure, you have to give your address. But if you’re making a donation to a political party and they want to be able to connect with you, they will need an address, a phone number, or an email address— but not all three. If you’re leaving a comment or signing a petition, they want to make sure you’re a real person, not a bot.

Companies want it all; whether they need it or not. If you give it to them, when you tell them to stop phoning you, they can send you junkmail or spam. If CBC or any person or company tells you information they have no right to is “required” the correct answer is “none of your business.”

Privacy is an important part of personal security; don’t give up any more than you have to.

Boston, Massachusetts, USA——Yesterday (Thursday, April 13th, 2017) Defective by Design granted Tim Berners-Lee the first ever Obedience Award, recognizing his work to help wealthy corporations add DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) to official Web standards. Inspired by the MIT Media Lab Disobedience Award, the Obedience Award highlights activity upholding the status quo despite an overwhelming ethical case against it. Today is the first opportunity for the addition of DRM to become final as per the formal process for setting Web standards.

As the director of the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) Berners-Lee previously fought to advance Web users’ rights, supporting net neutrality, privacy and universal access. Born in the UK, he was knighted by H.M. Queen Elizabeth in 2004 and awarded the Order of Merit in 2007. Most recently, he received the Association for Computing Machinery’s A.M. Turing Prize.

Though he was previously critical of DRM, Berners-Lee decided not to take a stand against Netflix, Microsoft, Google, and Apple when they began developing a Web standard for streaming video DRM, instead encouraging them to do so within the W3C. These wealthy companies supply copious membership dues to the W3C.

Their proposed standard, EME (Encrypted Media Extensions), will be the first W3C specification designed specifically to control and restrict users. As of today, EME has progressed through the entire W3C development process, and awaits Berners-Lee’s final decision to approve or veto it as an official part of the Web.

Defective by Design and a coalition of organizations have warned that standardizing Web DRM would lead to an increase in the amount of restrictions encountered by users, as creating them becomes cheaper and easier. They argue that EME will invite more abuses of users like the Digital Editions DRM, which was found to be exposing user information to snoopers, and more digital restraints preventing important, legal things that people do with media, such as accessibility modifications, translation, commentary, and archiving. Many are concerned that, should Berners-Lee allow the W3C to add DRM to video standards through EME, existing efforts to DRM-encumber text and image standards would be accelerated.

Presenting the Obedience Award, the Defective by Design team issued this statement:

“Overcoming his lifetime history of visionary work and his initial ethical concerns with DRM in Web standards, Berners-Lee turned a blind eye to the diverse groups opposing Encrypted Media Extensions. This man persevered to champion the interests of wealthy media and technology corporations. For his commitment to obedience, we recognize him today.”

Defective by Design requests that readers who are impressed with Berners-Lee’s tenacity take five minutes to call him about EME, giving him a chance to further prove his commitment to obedience.

About Defective By Design

Defective by Design is the Free Software Foundation’s campaign against Digital Restrictions Management (DRM). DRM is the practice of imposing technological restrictions that control what users can do with digital media, creating a good that is defective by design. DRM requires the use of proprietary software and is a major threat to computer user freedom. It often spies on users as well. The campaign, based at defectivebydesign.org, organizes anti-DRM activists for in-person and online actions, and challenges powerful media and technology interests promoting DRM. Supporters can donate to the campaign at https://www.defectivebydesign.org/donate.